Sunday, 3 November 2013

This
November its going to be a year since I joined the institute. What
happened here before any learning of cinema was ragging. I had
written about it here, in Malayalam. Now the new batch is going to
come and they are already being ragged and I am sure they will be in
future also. I believe ragging is a blatant violation of human rights
and is a crime. I am going to paraphrase the article in
English here.

Classes
started on 26th November 2012. There was a welcoming ceremony and a
dinner by the institute. Soon after the dinner started ragging. The
seniors were seated in a dark corner which now all of us know is the
open air theatre aka OAT and were asking us to do various acts.
Ragging is a process in which seniors of an educational institution
asks the juniors there to perform acts and abuse them according to
their whims. In the OAT I was asked to say 'action' aloud standing on
the benches, was abused and was asked to go the hostel. In the hostel
is the terrace where the elaborate and extended version of ragging
was happening. The terrace which I call the terrace is called the
'ragging terrace' by all due to this reason. There ragging would
continue till 6 or 7 in the morning or later. I didn't go there the
first day. I had no intention to on any of the days which followed.

During those
days the girls were allotted a quarter in the staff block. I noticed
that the next night there were two day scholars also staying there.
When I asked them why that was they said that the seniors had told
them that they had to stay back for ragging. I found all this very
absurd and silly. I didn't go that night either. But soon came my
batchmates asking me to go get ragged. They said the seniors had said
that unless the whole of our batch was present in the terrace they
would not cease ragging. My bathcmates' tone was soon shifting from
desperate to impatient to demanding to arrogant. One of them asked me
why it was such a huge problem for me when all others were ready to
be ragged. After half an hour of this and more bullshit I said I
shall show my face for five minutes and return.

It was too
cold in the terrace. I couldn't talk properly because my teeth were
chattering so. There a lot of people were watching the fun from
floors above. I was texting and talking to my friend and was asked to
switch my phone off. When I refused to do this they started showering
more abuses on me than before. One of them came very close to me and
said that this would have serious consequences. I no longer could
make out anything which was being said because nobody completed any
of their sentences. It was all threatenings which would be overlapped
with swear words.

Meanwhile
others were being questioned on the 'hot chair', being asked to hold
the boom rod which was a mop, to roll the camera (a fire
extinguisher) etc.

I walked out
of there.

That was the
beginning of it all.

The whole of
that night my bathcmates were sent to D quarters in intervals of five
minutes where I was trying to sleep. The seniors were sending the
message that if I refused to go back and get ragged there would be
serious consequences.

I refused to
go. My own batchmates started holding me responsible for the fact
that they were getting ragged mercilessly. During those days nobody
would talk to me. I called the registrar and the HOD of the
department of Direction and Screenplay Writing to report ragging. No
action was taken. The next day a group of faculty and the registrar
came to our class to ask if our batch was facing any problems. A lot
of people said they were. I myself was surprised. Then a register
with names and photos of seniors was given to us to identify the
raggers. With the names of five people I could recognise I gave a
complaint. Action was taken. 8 students were suspended and expelled
from hostel temporarily. An enquiry committee was set up and we were
all asked to testify. As a result of that two were permanently
suspended from hostel. Strict warning was given to the rest. This report came out in the media. This too
they said was done by me when in reality I had no clue who wrote it.
Nobody had contacted me while doing so.

When all
this was going on I was constantly being asked to withdraw my
complaint by a lot of seniors. This included people who weren't in
campus who called up my sister, Malayalis who hadn't been to campus
in a long time and ex students. Some of them said that I wouldn't be
allowed to work in the 'industry' (Malalam film-, I gather) after I
pass out. Two seniors had a long talk with me trying to convince me
that I was being made a pawn in the hands of the administration which
was essentially anti-student in nature. They said that they would go
on a strike which would bring the academic life to a stand still and
me and my batchmates would lose a year or two. When all this failed I
was ostracized along with my batch. In the Christmas party that
happened a notice was put up inviting all batches from 8-10th,
clearly giving out the message that us, the 11th batch was not
invited. My own batchmates were very hostile to me. They held me
responsible for this seclusion.

A year has
passed and there still are people who consider me a black sheep. I
don't really care. But this situation is scary. The campus is filled
with people who are insensitive about any kind of issues. They go by
the band wagon. If ragging has been happening for 17 years they will
support it too. Why should anything change? Nobody cares about what
is just and unjust. Nobody says a word about the casteism in campus.
When students of FTII were attacked by ABVP for having invited Kabir
Kala Manch to perform in campus along with the screening of
Patwardhan's Jai Bhim Comrade two members of the student body came to
me asking to write a letter of solidarity. They had no clue with what
they were expressing solidarity. When I said that I couldn't write it
on their behalf unless they agreed to the things I was writing they
said mockingly, 'we agree to it all'.

Yes, that is
the problem. They agree to it all. A professor says to a dark
complexioned student, we will do a 'black balance' on you. The joke
is that the real process is called 'white balancing'. Nobody says
anything. On the contrary everyone laughs. Another says 'We have a
joke in the department. During shoot we audiographers are treated
like SC/ST, OBC people'. Are we serious?

Looks like
they are.

I still get
asked questions like 'if you were to go back in time would you have
done what you did during ragging?' 'Do you still think ragging is
bad?'

For the nth
time, yes, yes and yes. Because

Say we
forget that ragging is a punishable offense. It will be worthwhile to
think why it has so many supporters in film schools. How is it that
this is being followed like a ritual among a group of supposedly
progressive aspiring film makers? The favourite argument of the
supporters of this crime is that it is the best way to know the
juniors. But this is a sadistic argument. Knowing people is not done
by forcibly making them do things. The relationship between juniors
and seniors is not that of a circus master and the animal they are
training. Nothing gives a group of people authenticity just because
they arrived in that space earlier than the others.

Then there
is this argument that the raggers suffer from split personality
syndrome. They are awfully mean and cruel only during ragging. After
that they are good sould who offer you sweaters and tea for the cold.
This reminds me of something my friend told about women who undergo
domestic violence. Most of them say about their husbands 'Otherwise
he is so loving'. Is this 'otherwise-love' any form of love at all?
My then room mate was asked to say some swear words in the movie
Gangs of Wasseypur. I don't consider this any less than verbal sexual
assault. I don't think there is anything wrong in swearing. I swear
myself. But I don't forcefully make people gather in a place and make
them listen to me swear. Nor do I force people to swear. I have heard
of such things happening only in bed. Or in porn. When she started
crying she was told to consider this as a training for editing scenes
with explicit content. In that case they could very well have asked
her to sleep with them considering it all as training, couldn't they.

The acts you
are made to do during ragging come in handy later on is another
argument. For an hour or more you are asked to stand with the broom
as the boom rod and the fire extinguisher as the camera etc. Is it to
learn cinema this way that students write a very tough entrance
exam, clear it, get shortlisted from thousands of candidates and get
selected in a government funded film school? I have never seen any
ragger inquiring about the physical fitness of one being ragged. What
if someone has a problem standing for more than half an hour? What if
they have some fracture in their arms? If something happens to the
students while being ragged will they be responsible to the parents
who sent them there trusting the institute? Will they be answerable
for a human life?

Another way
of threatening is by saying that you will suffer in the 'industry' if
you don't co operate with ragging. I find this rather silly. Their
argument that you will be left out in campus without support from
anybody is wrong. People go through hell during each one of the
productions. Whether or not they were ragged. Honestly it is only
about your film making skills rather than any ragging session you
have been through. And the industry they are talking about is shitty
to begin with. You go out as a pass out from the institute to be
scorned and scorned alone. Everybody struggles. Some make their way
out, some don't. That's norm which has not been broken because of the
nature of this undemocratic place. Doesn't depend of your film
institute history, uh uh.

The support
of faculty and other authorities is quite obvious. Some of the
professors and staff give you tips for being ragged. Such and such
shops sell cigarettes at these hours. So you might go there when they
seniors ask you to. I entered the bad books of very many professors
due to my take on ragging. That is alright. Whenever there is some
change happening, whenever norm was questioned this has happened.
There is no easy way out of it. Nero's party had guests.

Some of the
faculty indirectly asked me to be happy that we were not being harmed
physically. This is because most of them are pass outs from FTII
where ragging meant getting beaten up. So? Rules were imposed for a
reason. 'Sati' existed here. It was banned for a reason. But while it
was happening that too had supporters.

The funniest
thing I heard was said by a Malayali batchmate. He said that even
though he was devastated by ragging he liked it because having read
film school veterans like Bina Paul and Rasool Pookkutty's
experiences in film school and ragging he so wanted to experience it.

But later
when I thought of it, I realized that its quite possible. FTII is the
dream of most of the aspiring film makers in the country. For
Malayalis it is a famous nostalgia.

There has
been a campaign that ragging is an indispensable part of film school
life. There has been deliberate attempts to glorify it by recounting
of stories both made-up and real. A nostalgia which can be stated
along with canteen, freshers day etc. But ragging is not something to
be glorified thus. This is precisely what protects it. It is just a
form of torture which has the support of many. That doesn't make it
right. Human beings exercising power on other human beings for no
valid reason is a form of exploitation no matter what.

But I am
slightly happy about some of the changes that have happened. There is
an addition in the website of the institute like this.

In it are the
following contents.

I am happy that I too had a small role to play in
it.

Even though
my complaint had just five names 8 students were suspended initially.
Which means that there were others who even though were using me as a
cover protested against it. I find it a relief. Because in places
like this it is very hard to safeguard your opinion. More often than
not it gets washed away in a deluge of bullshit that your classmates
and professors bring with them.

Any day,
with any student who protests against ragging, I will be there.

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